The "M" Word Has Got To Go

Submitted by winesmith on Wed, 06/03/2015 - 8:07am

In my 2013 keynote address, I told the European Digital Wine Communicators Conference that accusing a winemaker of manipulation is like calling your wife a whore because she’s sleeping with you. What, she’s supposed to do her duty and then feel bad about herself? To place winemakers in this moral dilemma is to inhibit the acquisition of the necessary skill set which leads to invisibility of artifice and proper presentation of terroir. Thus the accusation itself fosters poor practice, the real source of clumsy winemaking.

To dishonor our craft is both insulting and naïve. Winemaking is, after all, just a form of food preparation – the ultimate slow food. Chefs are supposed to manipulate things. It’s what we do. What were they thinking?

musings:

Comments

Puzzlingly in an era when gay marriage and transgender activists feel comfortable advocating for their rights, winemakers remain cowering in the shadows, claiming to "do the minimum" while laboring night and day to do the right thing, to follow their dream vision while at the same time satisfying the aesthetic of their following, staying true to their purpose and staying alive at the same time.

The current state of affairs makes it clear that wine enthusiasts have no idea what soul-searching goes on in this quest. The insulting "M" Word has to go; in response to my recent article on manipulation, dozens of winemakers were happy to proclaim agreement to their Facebook friends, but few showed up in public to either comment on wine-searcher.com or the long discussion on wineberserker.com. Of the dozens of Facebook pages discussing the subject, a whopping two winemakers responded to my request to enter in.

Feels like San Francisco in the 70s. Nobody wants to be Harvey Milk, I guess.